


How Many Times

by WellyFullOfAle



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:24:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8521978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellyFullOfAle/pseuds/WellyFullOfAle
Summary: An imagining of how the Robert/Rebecca kiss from the spoilers could play out. I actually wrote this on Sunday before seeing the pics but couldn’t post as I had to wait for my AO3 account as it’s my first time on here. Sort of fits with the spoiler pics so thought I’d post it anyway. Written from Robert’s Point of View.





	

You’re stood in the kitchen pouring yourself a celebratory whiskey when you become aware of the backroom door swinging open, only to see a flash of blond hair under a fedora hat as Rebecca swans in, smile as broad as daylight for much the same reason that you’re starting to celebrate.

  
The Whites are on their way down.

“Aah Mr Sugden, you must have read my mind,” she purrs at you, and you’re aware that you’re returning her smile with that smug one sided smirk that you so often have reason to plaster over your face these days.

“Want one?” you ask her, already pouring one for her before she has the chance to answer because you already know what she is going to say.

“Well, it would be rude not to celebrate taking down my sister,” she beams, taking off her hat as she sits herself down on the sofa. “I’ve just passed D.S. Wise on his way up to Home Farm.”

You pour her a drink and walk over to her, handing her the glass as you clink and drink together, maintaining eye contact as you sip.

You let out a breathy laugh together as you manoeuvre around the coffee table to take a seat on the sofa next to her.

You’re vaguely aware that her eyes are tracing over your outline as you sit down, but you’re more interested in taking a quick check of your phone to see if Aaron has replied to the downright dirty text you sent him just before Rebecca walked in. You realise he must be working flat out at the scrapyard and must not have checked his phone yet, because he would never usually take this long to reply to you when you’d suggested the kind of things that you had done.

You smile at the thought of the look on his face when he reads it.

And the other look on his face when you do to him what you’d promised in the message.

“So,” Rebecca interrupts your thoughts, blissfully unaware of the direction your mind had been wandering in.

“So,” you reply back to her, leaning back on the sofa, smiling in her direction as you watch the way that her eyes flick from your eyes to your lips and back again; close enough to be aware that her pupils have dilated ever so slightly, like they always used to.

You hold a certain power over her.

You relish it, but not for the reason she hopes. Not anymore.

She’s definitely still a little bit in love with you, and you love that it gives you something to hold over your ex-wife and the White family in general. It’s even sweeter now that you need absolutely nothing from her in return. You’ve succeeded in your plan – Chrissie and Lachlan have been exposed, and your brother’s name has been cleared.

If only you had some way to get in touch with him to let him know the coast was clear for him to come home.

“I’ve missed this,” she admits brazenly, and you realise then that she’s probably sitting much closer to you on the sofa than she needs to.

You let the silence pierce the air between you for a short moment, assessing the way she’s looking at you with such intensity.

“Missed what?” you answer her; teasing her, because you know what she’s going to say but you want her to say the words out loud, because you’re Robert Sugden and you revel in taking power away from people who think they have any over you.

She takes the whiskey glass from your hand, and leans forward to place both of the glasses on the coffee table, taking the opportunity to shuffle ever so slightly closer to you.

There’s a silence that lingers in the air between you, and you know why, and you know what she’s going to do before she does.

“This,” she whispers, and she inches closer and plants her lips against yours, softly.

You pull back away from her – can only see Aaron’s face flashing through your mind – but she takes you leaning back in the wrong way and thinks you are beckoning her to move on top of you, and she keeps her lips fixed against yours in the kiss as she shifts and presses the side of her body against yours, taking your hands in hers and attempting to bring them above your head and hold them there as she always used to, all those years ago.

“Rebecca!” you cry out in distaste as you free your hands from hers and place them against her shoulders, pushing her away from you and finally prising her lips away from you.

You stand up as soon as you can get free from her grasp, exhaling sharply and wiping your lips with the back of your hand to rid yourself of the feeling of her against you.

You feel the instant stab of shame; it feels like a betrayal.

“What are you doing,” you chastise her, shaking your head, turning to face her and expecting her to find her sat on the sofa, squirming in embarrassment; pride well and truly dented.

Except this is Rebecca, isn’t it – she doesn’t understand those concepts.

She’s approaching you again, and you instantly recognise that look in her eyes.

You realise you probably shouldn’t have been so quick to encourage her. You know how she feels about you, and you’d been so preoccupied with keeping her under your influence; with making sure you kept that control over her; with relishing the opportunity to plot and scheme like the old Robert used to that you almost let yourself forget how much you had to lose now.

“Oh come on, Robert,” she pleads with you, smirk still drenched over her face like she thinks she knows the way this is going to go, even though you’re pretty sure you could have taken whatever you’d wanted a few seconds ago if that had ever been your intention, and you have every intention of rejecting whatever further advances she plans to make on you.

You wonder if she’ll ever get the message.

You’re going to need to make sure she does.

“We make a great team,” she tries to persuade you, making you flinch as she places her hand upon your arm. “Don’t tell me you don’t want me –”

“I don’t want you,” you interject immediately, welcoming the opportunity to make yourself crystal clear, pulling your arm away from her grasp.

She’s not deterred though, and she laughs in response to what you’re sure was a pretty unquestionable rejection on your part.

“This is how it goes, doesn’t it?” She smiles at you, oozing with arrogance in that manner that you used to find attractive, but now just seems so misplaced. “One of us plays hard to get,” she continues, “and then gives in eventually…”

She leans in closer to you again, and you have to find another way to tell her it’s a No.

“It’s not like that anymore Rebecca, trust me,” you say with defiance, eyes wide open to her game.

“Robert – you might have everyone else fooled, but this is me,” she warns you teasingly, as if she knows you better than anyone. You let out a laugh because you know how wrong she is, but she carries on regardless, defiant in her advances towards you, trying once again to lay her hands on you as you back away once more. “You can’t kid me,” she continues, “We’re the same, Robert.”

“We’re not,” you respond adamantly.

“We are!” she replies, voice rising as she begins to get exasperated with your rebuttals. “You’re just delaying the inevitable, Robert,” she smiles, as if she’s sure she can still trap you. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise. It can be our secret, like it always used to be, and you can just hop back into bed with Aaron once we’ve had some fun.”

That was enough. You had to put a stop to this.

“Look, Rebecca, you’ve got this all wrong,” you try to reason, but she isn’t done yet.

“Don’t tell me it hasn’t been fun,” she beams, clearly hoping to appeal to your nostalgia, “Plotting and scheming together like the good old days. It’s our foreplay, Robert – it always has been,” she purrs as she advances towards you yet again.

“Not any more, Rebecca,” you tell her, matter of fact, knowing you might need to give her more reason if you really want to stop her. You pull back away from her again, body language mirroring the words you’re telling her and hoping that the message might finally get through.

“Yeah,” you admit in honesty, “I won’t deny I enjoyed the scheming part Rebecca, like I used to – but you’ve got to understand that’s all there will be between us now. No foreplay. No once more for old times’ sake. No more. Nothing.”

You watch as the rejection starts to dawn on her, disappointment etching itself into the lines on her face.

“I’m not playing hard to get, and I’m not delaying the inevitable,” you correct her assumptions. “We can plot and scheme all you like, but we’ll never be together in that way again, Rebecca, trust me.”

She seems to be finally getting your point, as she lets her hands drop down to her sides from where they’ve been making an effort to reach out and hold you, and she slinks down to perch on the arm of the sofa, dejected.

She’s shaking her head, and she can’t look you in the eye anymore.

“I don’t get it,” she laughs, tone laced with regret. “What’s happened to you?”

“What?” you question her, bemused.

She pauses before answering you.

“What happened to the Robert Sugden that didn’t care about anybody but himself? The one who was so thoughtless he’d meet me in the loos during his own engagement party to have his way with me, whilst his wife to be was sat out in the restaurant,” her pitch is rising as she lists off the things you used to do together when you weren’t a better person and when you drowned yourself in a world of lies in order to get by. “The guy who would lie in bed next to his wife and text me all sorts, and the guy that would plot against –”

“I fell in love, Rebecca.”

You stop her in her tracks, but it’s the truth she needs to hear.

“Yeah, right,” she scorns at you, disbelieving.

“Yeah. Right.” You respond with conviction.

Because it’s the truth.

“I don’t believe you,” she pleads, eyes narrowing as she searches your face for some sign that you’re not telling the truth.

You know she won’t find one.

“Look, I was as surprised as you that it was even possible,” you reason with her, hoping she will finally be able to understand. “Believe me,” you continue, “I fought it too. You have no idea what me and Aaron have been through since we started seeing each other. I tried to kid myself that it was just an affair, but I fell in love with him, and he changed everything. And now we’re – I’m – happier than I’ve ever been. Aaron’s all I want now, Rebecca, and that’s never going to change. Why would I ask him to marry me if I wanted you?”

You see the realisation creeping over her, and you hope you’re finally getting through.

“You asked Chrissie to marry you,” she responds questioningly. “You were supposed to love her but that didn’t stop you playing away with me.”

“Yeah,” you agree, “And maybe that tells you everything about the way I really felt about your sister.”

“And Aaron’s different?” she scorns, but it’s not with disbelief this time, instead it’s with a hint of sadness, and you hope it means she’s finally hearing what you’re saying to her.

You laugh under your breath; partly through relief and partly with anticipation about being so open and honest with someone like Rebecca White.

“Yes,” you tell her with sincerity. “Yes, he is. Aaron’s different. Different to you; different to Chrissie. Different to anyone else I’ve ever been with. Nobody comes close, Rebecca.”

You see her exhale, as if all of her hopes about the pair of you together are finally evaporating away from her as she lets your words sink in.

“So you’re actually going to marry him?” she asks you incredulously, like she hadn’t considered the thought that you would go through with it.

“No, I just asked him to lead him on,” you reply sarcastically, immediately regretting giving her anything close to a glimmer of hope as you quickly backtrack. “Yes, of course I’m actually going to marry him,” you tell her defiantly.

“But you’re not gay,” she questions you, not giving up her fight just yet.

“I’m bisexual, Rebecca,” you say it again, the words still unfamiliar to you – you’d only said them out loud once before and never to someone you didn’t trust implicitly with every one of your secrets. “And the label doesn’t matter,” you continue, glazing over the hitch in your pulse rate. “What matters is that it’s Aaron. He’s the one I want. The only one,” you emphasise every single word. “Do you get that?”

You see her swallow down a lump in her throat, and you’re sure it means you’ve finally gotten through to her.

“And what if I tell him about that kiss?” she threatens, and you know it’s a last ditch attempt to snare you, and a part of you feels sorry for her that she’s willing to stoop this low. “Think he’ll still want to marry you then?” she questions, her tone betraying that she’s unsure of herself even if her words seem to want to show you the opposite.

“And what are you gonna say?” you reply to her calmly, sure she wouldn’t even try after what you’ve told her today, but you make sure your tone is brimming with that threatening demeanour you put across so well when you push her further. “That you threw yourself at me and I threw you straight off before telling you to get a grip of yourself because he’s the only one I want like that? Go ahead, knock yourself out, but I wouldn’t wanna be you when he knows you’ve tried it on with me.”

You shake your head, eyebrows raised as she looks at you with what seems like a mixture of confusion and defeat, exhaling again like it’s finally dawning on her, and you start to feel something slightly resembling sympathy for her.

It must be hard harbouring unrequited love for you.

“I don’t know what more I need to tell you,” you admit as you sit down next to her, reluctantly feeling like you owe something to her after bringing her hopes of your reunion crashing down around her. “Look at me,” you encourage her gently.

She looks up at you through hooded eyes like a sulking teenager, and you know then she’s got the message.

“I’m not playing games with you,” you tell her. “Working together to bring down Chrissie – yeah it was fun. It was like old times. And I’m not saying we can’t still be like that. But the rest of it – “

You pause as she shifts, seeming to physically shake off the rejection as she raises her head and softly flicks her hair back over her shoulder, pursing her lips and regaining the composure she so uncharacteristically let slip.

“The rest of it is done,” you continue. “I’m with Aaron. I love him, and I’m marrying him. And whether you believe it or not, I don’t care. I’m with him, and I don’t need anybody else. Not in that way. I’m sorry.”

She nods reluctantly at you, and you think – you hope – she’s finally got the point.

“Are we clear?” you ask her, because you need her to get it – you need this to be the last time she does this across you.

The silence between you is palpable for a short moment.

“Yes,” she eventually sighs in defeat. “We’re clear.”

“And you won’t –”

“Throw myself at you again?” she finishes your sentence for you, and you raise your eyebrow with a smile in return to confirm that’s the question you need her to answer.

“No,” she answers you convincingly as she gets up to leave, turning to you with one final plea before she walks out of the door, “but if you change your mind –“

“Which I won’t –,” you confirm. Again.

“But if you do,” she pushes one last time, “You know where to find me.”

She looks at you in expectation, but you shake your head and look away from her in exasperation.

“Well, don’t hold your breath, Rebecca,” you reply sardonically. “See you later,” you add, punctuating the end of the conversation.

You hope she gets the hint, and you put all of your effort into keeping your attention firmly fixed on the floor in front of you to show her that she’s no longer welcome, and you take your phone out of your pocket to prove it even further as you hear the door closing behind her.

You close your eyes and throw your head back as you rest back into the sofa, exasperated.

You were only trying to rile Chrissie up when you’d suggested Rebecca was still in love with you, but you realise now that you can’t have been far from the truth. The old Robert might have loved to have that power to hold over her, but you had more important people to think about now, and the thought of losing them was much more important to you than getting one over on the White family.

And as if he senses you thinking about him, your phone vibrates in your pocket with Aaron’s reply to your earlier text message.

Aaron: I’m coming home right now if that’s on the table. Get upstairs. I’ll be 5 minutes.

Your heart swells at the sight of his name on your phone and the promise within his words, and any thoughts of Rebecca disappear from your mind immediately. You lick your smirking lips and race upstairs in a heartbeat, well aware you’ll be home alone with the man you love for the afternoon, and realising you intend to take full advantage of that fact.

Several times, actually.


End file.
